1. Field
The following description relates to a system and method for monitoring energy consumption and reducing standby power, and more particularly, to a system and method that are capable of shutting off passive standby power and active standby power that is unnecessarily consumed by home appliances and home network devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to the advancement of digital technology and network technology, home and information appliances are being developed to have various functions in trend with technological fusion and convergence. These home and information appliances may be spread widely throughout homes and offices. However, due to the fusion and convergence in functions and support for networking functions, these appliances not only consume communication standby power (or active standby power) without user's recognition, but also consume command queuing standby power (or passive standby power) without user's recognition. The power may be consumed through various ways such as waiting for a remote control input which is provided for user's convenience.
For example, in the case of a home, about 10 to 20% of total power consumption is consumed as standby power (passive and active). Due to the advance in home networking the weight of active standby power is increasing and such standby power is expected to increase to up to 20 to 40% of the total power consumption, of which about 70 to 80% is to be consumed by active standby power. Thus it is desirable to consume the active standby power in the future.
However, it is difficult for a user to determine when and how to consume electric power because it is difficult for the user to determine the amount of power consumed in a certain user's device for a specific period of time. Instead, the user only knows the total amount of power consumed, for example, based upon the monthly electric bill. Recently the demand of technology capable of assisting users to practice energy saving has been increasing.
To monitor the energy consumption for each appliance, only the digitalization of the meters, remote metering technology, and related equipments for measuring total amount of power consumed by the home and building units has been developed. However, the technology that is not capable of monitoring the power consumption for each appliance for a specific period of time.
For automatic shut-off of standby power, for example passive standby power, a user may shut the power off at a pre-determined time using, for example, a remote control, an outlet, a timer, and the like. However, an outlet having an automatic shut-off function has not been developed yet. Furthermore, technologies and products which can automatically shut-off active standby power have not been developed yet.
For power service providers, only remote metering technology has been developed. However, technologies to feedback the collected power consumption data through an interworking system with higher level power suppliers and service providers has not been developed yet.